Background:This is the first assessment of the Republic of Slovenia’s efforts to synthesize and report physical activity (PA) standards for children and youth following the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance grading system model.Methods:The Republic of Slovenia Report Card relies on research findings published in peer-reviewed journals, data compiled from national databases, and government initiatives which have been monitoring physical fitness standards in schools for the past 34 years (SLOfit and ACDSi). The Report Card initiative has been jointly coordinated by the University of Primorska and the University of Ljubljana. A Research Work Group consisting of 12 representatives from various aspects of Slovenia’s public, private, and government sectors convened to evaluate evidence and assign grades for each PA indicator.Results:Grades (A, highest, to F, lowest; INC, incomplete) for Slovenia are as follows: Overall Physical Activity (A-), Organized Sport Participation (B-), Active Play (D), Active Transportation (C), Sedentary Behaviors (B+), Family and Peers (INC), Schools (A), Community and the Built Environment (INC), and Government (B+).Conclusions:This inclusive PA report indicates that overall physical activity minutes remain high in Slovenian children and youth; however, more research is needed to determine the effects of family life, peer influences, and the built environment on active play behaviors.
The research reported in this paper addresses the relationship between quality of open space and health related lifestyle in urban residential areas. The research was performed in the residential developments in Ljubljana, Slovenia, dating from the time of political and economic changes in the early nineties. Compared to the older neighborhoods, these are typically single-use residential areas, with small open spaces and poor landscape design. The research is concerned with the quality of life in these areas, especially from the perspective of the vulnerable users, like the elderly and children. Both depend on easily accessible green areas in close proximity to their homes. The hypothesis is that the poor open space quality affects their health-related behavior and their perceived health status. The research has three methodological phases: (1) a comparison between urban residential areas by criteria describing their physical characteristics; (2) behavior observation and mapping and (3) a resident opinion survey. The results confirm differences between open spaces of the selected residential areas as well as their relation with outdoor activities: a lack of outdoor programs correlates with poor variety of outdoor activities, limited to transition type, less time spent outdoors and lower satisfaction with their home environment. The survey also disclosed a strong influence of a set of socio-economic variables such as education and economic status on physical activity and self-perceived health status of people. The results therefore confirm the hypothesis especially for less affluent and educated; i.e., vulnerable groups.
Policies and strategies to develop renewable energy and the rates of successful deployment vary from country to country. Academic literature is rife with examples of recurring problems and malpractice in the implementation of renewable energy projects. We could see each national and sectoral effort as an 'experiment' in the early phase of our attempted transition to a low carbon energy system. What lessons can we learn from a comparative analysis of these experiments? This paper seeks to draw generic lessons not from what has gone wrong but from national case studies that stand out in a best way. Through a European academic network, we have selected and analysed 51 'smart practice' case studies of renewable energy development from 20 countries. We present the outcomes of both qualitative and quantitative analysis of these case studies (smart practice criteria) and discuss a set of generic findings concerning specific types of smart practices and problems of potential transferability of projects to other regions. With regards to policy relevance, the findings can be used for evaluating portfolios of renewable energy projects developed to date and for setting guiding principles for project design, spatial planning and consent by means of cross-national learning and fertilization.
European Union directives, along with their transposing arrangements in EU member states, can have unanticipated and sometimes undesirable impacts on certain regions and places. These include impacts on the use of space (e.g. new infrastructure or sprawl), governance, and on wider social, economic or environmental dimensions. Although ex-ante assessment of the potential impacts of EU initiatives has been carried out since 2002 through the European Commission's Impact Assessment procedure and also through national equivalents in some member states, important impacts are still overlooked, frequently because of their territorially heterogeneous nature within and between EU member states. This paper presents the results of the ESPON EATIA research project, in which a new territorial impact assessment methodology was developed for national and regional administrations in EU member states in order to inform their national positions during the negotiation of European draft directives and potentially other policy proposals.
This paper draws on the importance of public participation in improving several aspects of the land-use planning and decision-making process and regards the lack of adequate tools as an important barrier hindering effective implementation of participation in planning practice. The hypothesis is that extensive research into local knowledge, especially regarding values and goals, followed by a careful and focused preparation of expert proposals could improve the effectiveness of the participatory process. The paper therefore focuses on the development of methodologies to obtain knowledge from local residents and to integrate it effectively with expert knowledge to produce an input for the communicative process, whereby interaction and communication can bring about consensual planning proposals. The methodology discussed in this paper is an innovative combination of several tools already recognized within spatial and/or participatory planning, such as public surveys and participatory workshops. Connecting these tools can be shown to ameliorate their individual drawbacks and to achieve synergetic effects in all aspects. The use of support tools, such as cognitive mapping, statistical analysis, and suitability modeling, to assist these processes is also discussed. The study was implemented as a pilot project testing the proposed methodology in a case study of land-use planning for a local community in Slovenia, which is currently undergoing significant change from a rural community into an urban community. The results have shown that the use of a traditional questionnaire, combined with the mapping of chosen responses, proved effective in the acquisition of existing local knowledge. The result also showed that in-depth analysis of local knowledge and values and consideration of both in preparing alternative expert planning proposals proved to be a valuable input into traditional participation workshops, thus fostering an interactive participative planning process, whereby conflicts could be resolved while searching for a consensual solution.
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